SICB Newsletter Spring 2017 Issue Division of Comparative Endocrinology Message from the Chair Contents Michael Romero, [email protected] Message from the Chair .................1 I hope that everyone who was able to attend the meeting in New Orleans came back excited and rejuvenated about their research. Minutes from the Business Meeting .... 1 It was an excellent meeting. I look forward to seeing everyone next January in San Francisco, CA (2018), and the following year Message from the Program Officer ...2 in Tampa, FL (2019). Message from the Secretary ............2 DCE meeting highlights: The 16th annual Howard Bern lec- ture was presented by Dr. David Crews. His lecture, “We Have Message from the Student/Postdoc Soiled Our Nest, Now What?” was a terrific exploration of the un- Representative ..............................3 derlying endocrine mechanisms that can be disrupted by various Howard Bern Lecture Nominations ...4 human activities. The lecture evoked much discussion, which was continued at our social where the data blitz was again a major Elections ......................................4 highlight. It was also enjoyable to share our social with our col- leagues from DEDE. We also had fantastic student competitions for the Aubrey Gorb- man Oral Presentation Award won by Jennifer Merritt for her talk entitled, “An estrogen receptor alpha polymorphism may mediate behavioral polymorphism in the white-throated sparrow,” and the Lynn Riddiford Poster Presentation Award won by Talia Head for her poster entitled, “Proteomic analysis of the crustacean molting gland (Y-organ) over the molt cycle.” Congratulations to the win- ners and thanks to all those who participated! Special thanks goes to all those who volunteered their time to judge the presentations, especially Laura Carruth who organized the judging. DCE Officers & Representatives We also need to provide a special thanks to Ignacio Moore who, L. Michael Romero as DCE program officer, helped to put together a terrific program. Chair 2016-2018 New Business: The DCE business meeting covered a number of C. Loren Buck important topics. Click here for the minutes. The financial status of Chair-Elect 2016-2018 the division is good. We continued to discuss the endowment fund for the Howard Bern lecture. The fund currently contains approxi- Sharon Lynn mately $34,000. However, to fully fund the annual lecture requires Secretary 2017-2019 the endowment to eventually reach $75,000 or more. The good news is that we are almost half way to our goal. Please consider Ignacio Moore donations to the fund – with every little bit we get closer. Program Officer 2016-2018 We also discussed the two SICB journals, Integrative and Com- parative Biology (ICB) and the new on-line society journal (yet to Brian Walker be named). ICB has also floated a proposal to include articles from Program Officer-Elect 2017-2018 postdoctoral fellows as a way to provide a venue for retrospective or prospective articles from folks early in their careers. If this gets Christine Lattin implemented, we will need a mechanism for identifying good can- Student/Postdoc Representative didates from the ranks of DCE. If you have any ideas, please send 2015-2018 them to me. 1 SICB Newsletter Spring 2017 Issue SICB also instituted a new Meeting Code of Conduct. details will be emailed and posted online this sum- If you haven’t already, please read this important mer. DCE will be sponsoring five symposia, includ- document (http://www.sicb.org/resources/policies. ing Understanding the Evolution of Endocrine System php3#code). Variation through Large-scale Comparative Analyses and Behavioral and Physiological Adaptation to Ur- I also wanted to remind everyone about the upcom- ban Environments. ing 18th International Congress of Comparative En- docrinology being held June 4-9, 2017, at Chateau I encourage any who have thought about organizing Lake Louise, Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada. a symposium to start planning for our 2019 meeting Several symposia will be hosted by DCE members. in Tampa, Florida. Proposals will be due August 24, 2017. Feel free to contact me should you have any Finally, I wanted to alert everyone to the upcoming questions about organizing one. election for the DCE chair-elect (Pierre Deviche and Kathleen Hunt have graciously agreed to run) Message from the Secretary and DCE secretary-elect (Tim Greives and Michael Sharon Lynn, [email protected] Sheriff have graciously agreed to run). I urge ev- eryone to vote. It is also not too early to plan for our I hope you all enjoyed a productive and interesting next meetings in San Francisco and Tampa. Specifi- SICB meeting in New Orleans this year! I am excited cally, if there are any suggestions for nominations for to be moving into the position as DCE secretary after the Howard Bern lecture or for exciting DCE sympo- Sarah Woodley’s excellent service in this role. sia for future meetings, please contact me or any of Unbelievably, it is already time to vote for a new the DCE officers. Chair-elect and a new Secretary-elect for our divi- Message from the Program Officer sion. We have a slate of four excellent candidates, Ignacio Moore, [email protected] whose information appears below. Please take a mo- ment to vote and make your voice heard! I hope that everyone enjoyed the New Orleans meet- ing. The city was great and I certainly enjoyed more Also, if you haven’t already, please join our Face- than my share of the great food and drink. This was book group: https://www.facebook.com/ the largest SICB conference ever and bodes well for groups/104465249680261/ This is an excellent ven- the future. ue for asking endocrinology-related questions, con- necting with colleagues, and posting announcements Dr. David Crews was the Howard Bern lecturer about jobs, funding opportunities, and conferences. and he gave a compelling talk about the dangers of We currently have over 230 members and would like man-made chemicals in our environment. David’s to keep the group growing! long history of diverse studies in comparative en- docrinology and curiosity-driven science are a great You can also email me at [email protected] model for all researchers. with any announcements you would like to have in- cluded in the SICB monthly member update. If you Congratulations to the winners of the DCE Student would like to do this, please be sure to do so by the Presentation Awards. The Aubrey Gorbman award 5th of each month. for best oral presentation went to Jenny Merritt of Emory University, and the Lynn Riddiford award for Below are some upcoming meetings to mark on your best poster presentation went to Talia Head of Cali- calendars: fornia Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. • Endocrine Society Annual Meeting: April 1-4, There was unanimous consent that all the presenta- 2017, Orlando, FL. tions were high quality and any of them could have won. Many thanks to Laura Carruth for organizing • Canadian Society of Zoologists Annual Meet- the judging of student presentations. In addition, ing: May 15-19, 2017, University of Manitoba, thanks also to all the individuals who took the time Canada. to judge student presentations. I’m already looking forward to the San Francisco conference next January. Abstract and registration 2 SICB Newsletter Spring 2017 Issue • 18th International Congress of Comparative En- of their busy schedules to meet with students and docrinology (ICCE) held jointly with the 4th bi- post-docs: Fran Bonier, Creagh Breuner, Emma ennial conference of the North American Society Coddington, Erica Crespi, Tim Greives, Ignacio for Comparative Endocrinology (NASCE) and Moore and Michael Sheriff! the 9th International Symposium on Amphibian and Reptilian Endocrinology and Neurobiology The 5th annual Data Blitz (organized by Rebecca (ISAREN): June 4-9, 2017, Chateau Lake Lou- Calisi-Rodriguez) was also a big hit. Stephen Fer- ise, Alberta, Canada. guson, Jenny Merritt, David Ensminger, Conor Taff and Kristy MacLeod presented hilariously in- • Society for Behavioral Neuroendocrinology An- formative rapid-fire science talks that were all so nual Meeting: June 11-14, 2017, Long Beach, good that everyone was pronounced co-winners. If California. you are a student/post-doc/young faculty member interested in participating in Data Blitz 6, email the • Animal Behavior Society Annual Meeting: June new DCE Student/Post-doc Reps for more informa- 12-16, 2017, Toronto, Canada. tion. • Evolution Annual Meeting: June 23-27, 2017, Which brings me to the fact that my term as DCE Portland, Oregon. Student/Post-doc Rep is ending (sniff!), and the new • Society for Experimental Biology: July 3-6, DCE Student/Post-doc Rep will actually be two peo- 2017, Gothenburg, Sweden. ple - Stephen Ferguson, PhD candidate at the Uni- versity of Memphis ([email protected]), and • American Society of Ichthyologists and Her- Suzanne Austin, post-doctoral fellow at the Univer- petologists Annual Meeting: July 12-16, 2017, sity of California Davis ([email protected]). They Austin, Texas. will be sharing this position partly because Rebecca Calisi-Rodriguez is stepping down from organizing • Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting: No- the Data Blitz, and the new DCE Student/Post-doc vember 11-15, 2017, Washington, DC. Reps will take that over, along with organizing other • 29th Conference of European Comparative En- activities around the annual meeting. docrinology: August 2018, Glasgow, United If you haven’t already, please join the DCE Face- Kingdom. book group, and make sure to check out the com- Wishing you all a safe and productive spring! prehensive list of External Grant & Fellowship Oppor- tunities for Students and Postdocs put together by Message from the Student/Post-doctoral Af- the Student/Postdoctoral Affairs Committee, which fairs Committee Representative can be accessed through the For Students tab on the Christine Lattin, [email protected] SICB website.